ABSTRACT

The real possibility of a serious energy shortage in the United States recently has been emphasized by economic and political events affecting the petroleum industry. As a result, many explorationists are pressing for new means and approaches by which to increase domestic reserves. As one example of the latter, interest in subtle traps resulting from facies changes, erosional processes, and paleogeomorphic features, is increasing in the Gulf Coast as the more obvious structural features become exhausted. A group of calcareous banks along the outer edge of the northern Gulf continental shelf represent potential paleogeomorphic traps of a type that may have been common on ancient Gulf shelves since the Oligocene Epoch. Microfaunal and lithologic facies analyses, as demonstrated on and around the existing banks, provide powerful tools by which to recognize analogous features in the subsurface.